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How to use Papy Serge album !

updated on 15th Novembre 2011

bijoux fantaisie

Subject 

"Once retirement time came, I needed to realize my promise made to my children and grandchildren to give them a DVD bringing together, in an original albums, all the photographs in our possession.

A real album, hey Papy, with pages that turn...

And it is there that difficulties began, modify studio 12 album series themes, rotate pages, we get about, but making photos rotate at the same time and be still at the right place ???"


Such were the first words of an email that I received early December 2010, and it is by this that I met Papy Serge !
Of course, everyone knows the montage themes of series Album provided by Pinnacle in version 12 of Studio, and then enriched by several different skins in Studio 14. I proposed you to learn how to change them in my tutorial How to modify a montage theme. E-N-C has also proposed us a very nice adaptation with his album Mariage. But, to imagine such colossal work as Papy Serge performed for his children and grandchildren, there is a world !
Since early december, we have worked with Papy Serge to adapt his fabulous album to make it more convinient and customizable.
Nevertheless, some explanations seem us necessary to fully understand how to take the best advantage.


Understand how themes are stored !


Nothing seems able to stop Papy Serge. The series includes no less than 85 themes to be combined to build a truly unique album.

Of course, this makes 5 pages of themes in Pinnacle Studio 12 album...

Like in the album of Pinnacle, we will find:
  • the album opening sequences
  • transitions
  • and ending sequences

Making his family Albums, Papy Serge found himself confronted with successions of photos in portrait and landscape mode. So he needed to create different page settings to adapt to each situation.

This led him to produce  6 different opening themes, 2 ending themes, and a lot of different transition themes.

In transitions, there are 4 families:
  • Classic transitions are simple adaptations of transitions provided by Pinnacle.
  • transitions "left to right" to open on the left page then zoom out, then pan and zoom on the right page.
  • transitions "lateral" which also overlook the left page are then drag the view to the right page
  • transitions "page turn", which allow Papy Serge to keep the promise made to his grandchildren, and that will allow you to turn the pages of your albums
  • and finally transitions "page turn with text", designed to insert a page of text within your photo album.

Cliquez pour agrandir l'image

Thanks to a clever naming each family themes is located in contiguous blocks (for those who don't know, montage themes are presented alphabetically in each series). In addition, to better visualize these blocks, Papy Serge artfully placed "dummy" montage theme between blocks, with a thumbnail announcing the name of the block !

One album ?  ...  No, in fact more than 16 000 different Albums !


Originally, Papy Serge made a different album for each of his grandchildren... Unfortunatly, the size of these files made all this work not easy enough to download. So, we spent a lot of time to transform these albums to reduce their size and make them compatible with a proper functioning of this website.
By the way, albums had became much more customizable !

As a result, this is not one album that Papy serge offers us, but more than 16,000 different albums, with the choice between:
  • 7 background images
  • 7 covers
  • 7 page textures
  • 7 different frames surrounding your photos
  • 7 thematics (some themes only!)

You may calculate that it does very precisely 16 807 possible combinations!

In addition, a complementary option allows you to add a tint to the background image...

But personalization is not synonymous with ergonomics...

It was possible for offers in the theme editor settings to access to each of these 5 parameters, but my testings shown that was not practical at all, as it needed for each theme of the album to re-select the 5 customization settings.

So we decided to do otherwise...

In each montage theme of these series, you'll find a Themes parameter  which give you the choice between 8 different settings

NEW, on Novembre 2011 15th, Jean François P. sent me a lot of materials from which I extracted 4 additionnals default settings. From now, it is not 7 but 11 default settings proposed to your choice !

Each of these options corresponds to one of 16 807 album customization possibilities.

How therefore access to 16 799 others ask me you?

NEW for AVID Studio : It is now possible to select a skin among 4 choices (for technical reason, it is not possible to choose among the 11 default settings like with Pinnacle Studio). To  an other skin into your album, you should proceed as follow :

Customizing default skin


The default value proposed for the Theme parameter has been cleverly planned by Papy Serge in order to receive the files  corresponding to the different settings for each of the options.

Firstly, put a theme on the timeline (e.g. the first opening theme), view it, and then select another value fortheme setting, and so on until having seen all of them. Note the options you want to use as default :
  • background image
  • album cover
  • the frame around each photo
  • page texture
  • thematics

Note all this on a small piece of paper.

Then open Windows Explorer, and go into the following directory:
  • with Windows Vista and 7 : C:\Users\Public\Documents\Pinnacle\Content\IMG-Templates\Papy Serge Album\-Assets
  • with Windows XP :  C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Pinnacle\Content\IMG-Templates\-Assets

You will find 5 different directories and some files. We will only focus on directories:
  • Album: contains the different album covers
  • Cadre: contains the different frame surrounding drop zones
  • Decors: contains the different layers of thematic decoration
  • Fond: is the directory containing different background images
  • Texture: contains various textures page.


To build your default package, you have to go into each of these 5 directories, and replace the contents of the file named default.png by one of the other files in this directory.
To do this, first delete the file named default.png, and then duplicate the file corresponding to the option you are interested in (by selecting the file, and then doing a copy - paste with CTRL + C then CTRL + V, then renaming the second instance of the file, for example baby - copy.png by default.png)
Repeat for each 5 options...

note: Studio reads the files used by the themes when starting up. I therefore advise you to relaunch Studio at the end of this operation to observe the outcome.

For further customization...


You can also consider building your own skin for album of Papy Serge. To do this, you need to build your own files for album cover, picture frame, texture, decor, and background screen.
To make everything going well, the simplest is to edit existing files default.png  and then replacing their content by yours, for example found on the internet.  Paint.net  will be perfect for this kind ok work. In addition it is a free open source software !

We will take the example of the album cover.

  • Open Paint.net
  • Into Paint.net, open the default album cover file ( menu open/file) and go to the directory containing the covers album, either with Windows Vista and 7  : C:\Users\Public\Documents\Pinnacle\Content\IMG-Templates\Papy Serge Album\-Assets\album or with Windows XP :  C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Pinnacle\Content\IMG-Templates\-Assets\album, then select default.png
  • If for example, you've spotted sympathetic cover using Google image, view it at its full size, then right click, select copy image.
  • Go back into Paint.net and copy the image extrated from Google image into a new image (menu edit/paste/into a new image)
  • If needed, reduce the size of this image to that of default.png, otherwise it will be truncated during the merger... (menu image/resize or CTRL + R). The size of the current edited image is shown at the bottom right
  • Select your new image (menu Edit/Select all or CTRL + A), and then copy the buffer (edit/copy or CTRL + C)
  • return on image default.png and copy your buffer as a new layer (Edit/Paste/in a new layer)
  • iYou must now adjust this layer in size and position to ensure that your cover is perfectly superimposed on the existing.
  • Finally, save the result with the command save as, and select the format .png, then select 32-bit otherwise transparent areas will become white, and then validate "flattening" image (which means that the layers will be merged).

That's all, your new cover is ready. You can do this for each of the options of the album.

Many Thanks to Jean François P. who creates additional skins for Papy Serge's Album !

Did you made an original customization ? if so, don't hesitate to submit me to share it with all visitors ...

How to use themes of Papy Serge album...


Getting such flexibility is possible only with a few concessions. To use this album, will need you 2 or 3 minutes of attention.

There is no miracle, and to be able to choose different pages (e.g left and right) separately, we will have to use 2 or 3 tracks of Studio.

Let's see in detail the implementation of the various sections of this Papy Serge Album series.

Opening, Ending and Classic Transitions !


               
Opening, Ending, and classic Transitions themes are single track themes, usable just as those of the Pinnacle album.

The second ending theme has a page with green background. This allows placing theme on overlay track and by applying a chromakey effect render transparent this page to display main track content. We'll see an other day why Papy Serge amused to do that...

"Left to right" and "Lateral" Transitions 

Here we will discover the main idea of this album from Papy Serge. In section Left to Right, we find 12 left and 12 right pages !
Each left page can be combined with each right page. This does 144 different combinations for these transitions.
Section Lateral is smaller, since it contains "only" 2 left and 2 right pages.

To use these themes, just follow following sequence :
  • place the left page theme (marked piste 1 and having a broken line on its left side of its thumbnail) on main track.
  • fill drop zones. If the opening drop zone hosts a video, optionally adjust departure time with the little slider below the drop zone, and stretch the theme on its left side.
  • place the desired right page theme page on the overlay track, just below the left page theme by aligning them on their right side
  • fill drop zones. If the ending drop zone is a video, optionally adjust departure time and stretch theme on overlay track on its right side.

Note that you cannot mix a left and a right page coming from 2 different sections... .

Avid Studio : As you may be know, in Avid studio, video tracks are set in a different way than with Pinnacle Studio. The upper layer should be set on the first track, the second track will host the layer just bellow, and so on ... So theme marked Piste 1 should be placed on the third track, Piste 2 on the second one, and Piste 3 on the first one  !

"Turn Page" Transitions 

As their name suggests, these transitions will be used to turn the pages of the album...
Here, choose configuration of pictures (left and right pages) of departure (before turning the page) among 11 possibilities, and configuration of arrival (once page turned) among 11 other possibilities.

It makes therefore 121 possible transitions for each album "skin" ...

  • Departure configuration will be necessarily placed on track 2 (topics are marked piste 2 and include a broken line on their left side). As above, if the opening drop zone contains a video, adjust its starting position and stretch the theme on its left side.
  • Configuration of arrival will be placed on the title track. (corresponding topics are marked piste 3 and include a broken line on their right). If the drop zone is a video, adjust the duration by stretching the theme on its right side.
  • For technical reasons, it must also be placed a third theme on track 1 with exactly the same content as the theme of the track 3 with respect to the right page. This theme of track 1 is located just before the  theme for track 3 in the album, and has an identical thumbnail!

Important: it is essential that themes of the 3 tracks are perfectly one above another, without which the movement of the page will not be correct.

note that on the theme of track 1, it is not necessary to fill drop zones of the left page, because only those set  in track 3 are used (those of track 1 are masked by the page which will turn). Indeed, you observe that you will be unable to deposit anything in these drop zone, and it's normal !

Avid Studio : As you may be know, in Avid studio, video tracks are set in a different way than with Pinnacle Studio. The upper layer should be set on the first track, the second track will host the layer just bellow, and so on ... So theme marked Piste 1 should be placed on the third track, Piste 2 on the second one, and Piste 3 on the first one  !

"Turn Page with text" Transitions 

As their name suggests, these transitions will be used to insert a page of text within your photo album while turning pages. 2 possibilities are offered for the left page while your text will be displayed on the right page. After turning page, 8 différents arrangements are proposed.

It makes therefore 16 possible transitions for each album "skin" ...

  • Departure configuration will be necessarily placed on track 2 (topics are marked piste 2 and include a broken line on their left side). As above, if the opening drop zone contains a video, adjust its starting position and stretch the theme on its left side.
  • Configuration of arrival will be placed on the title track. (corresponding topics are marked piste 3 and include a broken line on their right). If the drop zone is a video, adjust the duration by stretching the theme on its right side.
  • For technical reasons, it must also be placed a third theme on track 1 with exactly the same content as the theme of the track 3 with respect to the right page. This theme of track 1 is located just before the  theme for track 3 in the album, and has an identical thumbnail!

Important: it is essential that themes of the 3 tracks are perfectly one above another, without which the movement of the page will not be correct.

note that on the theme of track 1, it is not necessary to fill drop zones of the left page, because only those set  in track 3 are used (those of track 1 are masked by the page which will turn). Indeed, you observe that you will be unable to deposit anything in these drop zone, and it's normal !

Avid Studio : As you may be know, in Avid studio, video tracks are set in a different way than with Pinnacle Studio. The upper layer should be set on the first track, the second track will host the layer just bellow, and so on ... So theme marked Piste 1 should be placed on the third track, Piste 2 on the second one, and Piste 3 on the first one  !

How many themes ?


We have at our disposal:
  • 6 opening themes
  • 2 ending  themes
  • 3 classic transitions
  • 144 transitions "left to right" (by combination of themes)
  • 4 transitions "lateral" (by combination of themes)
  • 121 transitions "turn page" (by combination of themes)
  • 16 transitions "turn page with text" (by combination of themes)

This make a total of 296 different themes with 16 807 possible skins

... Papy Serge  chapeau !

Here is a small example ...


Here is the timeline of a small example that has an opening theme, a transition Left to Right, 2 Turn Page, then a classic before ending the theme.

Cliquez pour agrandir l'image

Let's see the corresponding movie :



                               
A last Advice: montage themes utilisation may submit your PC to heavy calculation load, particularly when using triple track themes. If you want to edit a relatively long album, it will be preferable to proceed in 2 steps in building your photo album by portion of 5 to 10 minutes, then assemble parts in final montage.

Now you can play, good courage, and once agin Many thanks to Papy Serge, and many Thanks also to Jean François P. for the additional skins edited in the 15th of Novembre 2011 release.

Post scriptum : some words from Papy Serge ...


Give back  to 20cents-video what belongs to ...

DVD promised to my grandchildren has been achieved thanks to informations collected mainly on two sites. The first  Guignol-Film.fr where I discovered the structure of montage themes, the second, 20cents-video.com, which allowed me through his bible on the programming language and associated training montage theme series, rapid progress.

When my project was finalized, it seemed logical to offer in return to 20cents-video files that I had created.

The album that you downloaded today has been done to the cost of great efforts from the administrator of this site which has automated tasks, corrected errors of the beginner who I am, and refined presentation so that everyone can customize his photo or video album.

Thanks 20cents-video.


Papy Serge

bijoux fantaisie


Any comment about this page ?

Written by
Atulk
3 messages

Manish Kumar Singh From IndiaFriday 2 December 2011 08:07:28

Hi sir!!
very nice to see your page and nice piece of work! i have already visited this site and found to be very interesting..i am software engineering student and want to learn how to create my own montage themes from scratch..i know the following language..1. c#, Java, Asp.net,Html, sql and etc..but don't have idea how to create my own montage themes. i want to create and upload my themes on this site. Please if you can email me something related to this i will be very glade full (am using pinnacle studio hd 14 for general purpose not for professional).. i like Franche people ..have a nice day from this indian friend ..
email id is atulfree@gmail.com


Only registred users are allowed to post comments


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